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- Convenors:
-
Malin Nystrand
(Roskilde University)
Arthur Sserwanga (Makerere University Business School)
Send message to Convenors
- Stream:
- Economy and Development
- Location:
- 50 George Square, G.05
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Exploring the role of domestic investors in the agricultural and extractive sectors in Africa focusing on the way different types of domestic investors navigate, relate and do business and the effect of their investments on the national economic and political development and on local populations.
Long Abstract:
The academic as well as public debate on large-scale investments in land, agriculture and extractives in Africa has focused primarily on foreign investors, while the role of domestic investors remains underexplored. Nonetheless, domestic investors despite their relative invisibility are manifold and increasing, according to newer FAO data. The role of domestic investors is different from foreign actors, since they are normally more embedded (connected) in national and local political, economic and social networks and institutions. This does not necessarily mean that their investments are less contested (disruptions) or more productive, but that other factors are important in analysing their role and the potential impact of their investments. Domestic investors are not a homogenous group. There are large and small businesses; individuals and business conglomerates; state-owned enterprises and public-private partnerships; those with primarily national focus or those integrated in international and/or regional networks; investors of different social identities (gender, ethnicity); those who are part of or close to the ruling elite and those that try to keep a distance to political involvement. The panel invites papers that explore the connections and disruptions of domestic investors in the agricultural and extractive sectors in Africa with a particular focus on the way different types of domestic investors navigate, relate and do business and thereby the effect of their investments on the national economic and political development and on local populations in the investment location(s).
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the changing relations between domestic sugar companies and local populations, as a result, new actors entering the sugar sector in Uganda.
Paper long abstract:
Large-scale sugar production is old in Uganda, with the first sugar mills being set up in the 1930s. The industry has for a long time been dominated by a few large domestic business conglomerates, owned by Ugandan-Asian business families. These large sugar plantations have built whole communities around the mills, creating long-term relations with the local populations, through employment, outgrower schemes and provision of social services for the surrounding communities. However, the last decade has seen an influx of new actors in the sector, challenging these relations. Farmers and other actors within the local population are responding to these changes in different ways, some seeing possibilities of a better deal for themselves in relation to the sugar estates, others being fearful of losing the stability in the existing relations. The changes in the sector are made possible partly due to external factors and partly due to the government taking a less protective role in relation to the large sugar estates than before. This paper analyses these changing relations through a political economy lens, focusing on the relations between investors, local populations and ruling elites with the overarching aim of illuminating the challenges and opportunities of domestic investors in a changing policy landscape.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores, from a political economy perspective, how domestic investors in northern Uganda have navigated land conflicts and managed to create good enough relations with local farmers and thereby created conditions for large-scale investments in agriculture in a conflict-ridden region.
Paper long abstract:
Northern Uganda has a huge potential for large-scale agricultural production, but large tracts of arable land remain underutilised a decade after the end the last war, partly because of lack of capital among local landowners and partly due to persistent conflicts over land.
The region has attracted interest from investors with capital and capacity for agricultural investments. However, some conflict-ridden high-profile investment cases have created an image of the north as a risky place to invest in, with regard to securing land and creating good relations with the local population.
The issue of land is sensitive after the war-induced large-scale displacement of a majority of the northern population. Land conflicts are common, both within families and between new landowners and local populations, and there are often accusations of political interference in land matters. In spite of all this, many agricultural investments have taken place, both plantation based and based on contract-farming schemes and both by domestic and foreign investors. This paper focuses on domestic investors, exploring how they have navigated the land issues and managed to create good enough relations with local landowners and farmers and thereby created conditions for large-scale investments in agriculture. The paper applies a political economy perspective, looking at both the economic side of the investment deals and the power relations between investors, local populations and ruling elites, with the aim of identifying favourable conditions for domestic investors playing a constructive role in developing agricultural production in a conflict-ridden region.
Paper short abstract:
This study unveiled the nuanced interface of skewed power relation in local land grabs by political elites in Nigeria. Overriding powers in land laws are used by Governors to grab land for commercial farms which create economic, social, & cultural intersections and disruptions with gendered impact.
Paper long abstract:
This study digresses from the dominant standpoint of extant literature on the phenomenon of large-scale land investment or 'land grabbing' which is preoccupied with skewed analysis of the role of foreign agribusiness investors as the key actors. Therefore, the study breaks with this dominant narrative by interrogating the asymmetric interfaces of power underpinning the politics of land via examining the multifaceted and overlapping role of Nigerian political elites in reinforcing the appropriation of local farmlands. Since Nigeria's return to democratic system in 1999, there have been a surging trend of numerous power-wielding State Governors delving into agribusiness, thus, acquiring vast swathes of agrarian farmlands to establish private commercial farms. Ominously, the superimposing powers provided by the Land Use Act of 1978, in tandem with deeply-rooted patriarchal system have been deployed by these elites to exacerbate land grabbing. Fundamentally, these processes have birthed new and shifting political, economic, social and cultural intersections and disruptions. This study therefore interrogated the multilayered and nuanced interfaces and disruptions occasioned by this trend using vulnerable smallholder women farmers of the agrarian region of Northern Nigeria as primary emphasis. Drawing on instrumentalities of historical and exploratory research design rooted on qualitative methodology—In-Depth Interview, Focused Group Discussions and desktop review—findings from this study revealed shifting economic connections between politicians and women peasants; disruption to customary land rights and historical livelihood-sustaining farming patterns; disconnection from ancestral farmlands occasioned by dispossession; disruption of the system of food-crops planting; and the establishment of new agency of resistance among women peasants.